Privatization in reference to higher education refers to a process or tendency of colleges and universities (both public and private) taking on characteristics of, or operational norms associated with, private enterprises. Although the term is not a precise one (any more than the distinction between a "public" and a "private" college or university), privatization connotes a greater orientation to the student as a consumer, including the concept of the college education as a "product"; attention to image, competitor institutions and "market niches"; pricing and the enhancement of net earned revenue; and aggressive marketing. Privatization also suggests the adoption of management practices associated with private business, such as contracting out, or "outsourcing" (i.e. turning to private firms to perform non-academic services such as printing, food services, bookstore operations, or general building maintenance), aggressive labor relations and minimization of payroll expenditures, decisive decision-making and "top down" management, widespread use of audits and accountability measures, and an insistence that each unit (department or academic program) contribute to profitability, or at least to the organizations particular metric of "success." Proponents of more privatized higher education claim that it makes colleges and universities more responsive to the needs of students and employers alike, in addition to generating efficiencies that can enhance the institutions goals, whatever they may be.

Movement in the direction of greater privatization may mean any or all of the following:

- Seeking greater autonomy from government, as in getting relief from state budget "line" or "billet" controls and moving toward "lump-sum" budgeting.

- Embracing the concept of "enrollment management," which limits financial assistance, or institutional "price discounts," to those students whom the institution most wants and who also require the least discounts to matriculate.

- Adopting a culture of service to the student as a client.

- Fund raising (to lower dependence on state taxpayers).

- Contracting out auxiliary enterprises (e.g. bookstore and food services) as well as certain administrative functions such as printing and maintenanceor at least putting such services "on their own fiscal bottoms" and making them compete with private providers.

- Trimming departments and other units that seem not to be attracting students or research dollars, or otherwise justifying them being "carried" by the units that do.

Privatization may best be viewed as a direction along the continua of several related yet distinct dimensions, shown in Table 1, below.

Table 1
Privatization in Higher Education as
Direction or Tendency on Multiple Dimensions

Dimensions

High "Publicness"

High "Privateness"

Continua of Privatization [Greater Privatization -->]

1. Mission or Purpose

Serves a clear "public" mission as determined by the faculty or the state.

Mission is avowedly both pubic and private, but as defined by faculty.

Opponents of privatization claim that it distorts and subverts the core mission of a college or university, which is to seek truth and generate new knowledge, unfettered by the need for commercial application or external justification, and to preserve and transmit both these truths and societys underlying cultural heritage. In a different but related vein, they claim that the norms of private business practices are contrary to the established traditions of "shared governance" and to the norms of the academic profession, which require substantial professional autonomy, peer rather than hierarchical authority, and a less materialistic culture.

Few observers would deny outright the importance of responding appropriately to the needs of students or employers, or the need for good fiscal stewardship and efficient management. However, the critics of privatization claim that these have generally existed in appropriate measure. The new emphasis on enhanced privatization, they claim, especially coming from conservative state governments and directed at their public higher education sectors, is more an expression of impatience with the faculty and with shared governance--hence, the calls for greater managerial authority and for the abolition of tenure. It is also, to its critics, an elevation of the goals of organizational efficiency and vocational relevance over the goals of academic quality and learning for its own sake.

The politically or ideologically contested press for greater privatization is mainly a public sector issue. In the private sector, the very wealthy colleges and universities with deep and affluent applicant pools (e.g. Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, Williams, Amherst, and Grinnell) can afford to offer an education based on the academic principles of their faculties, and can also afford to observe the academic norms (even the occasional preciousness) of the faculty. The colleges with little or no endowment, which are thus almost entirely tuition dependent and which also tend to have relatively thin and tuition-sensitive applicant pools, have already become largely privatized, much as described above (or else many of them would almost certainly no longer be in business).

The most contested terrain, where there is both great press for, and also much resistance against, greater privatization, is in the public research universities and the pubic comprehensive colleges and universities. In these institutions, the push for greater privatization generally reflects a demand from state governors and legislators for greater "accountability," higher academic standards, sharpened academic focus (read, "fewer small courses and programs"), a faculty more responsive to the undergraduate and less to his or her own research (unless it is bringing in large research grants), and more decisive decision making and less of what is perceived as "indulgence" of the faculty.

For Further Reading
[Many references deal with higher educational privatization
in an international comparative perspective.]